In The Price of Fish, Michael Mainelli and Ian Harris examine in a unique way the world’s most abiding and wicked problems sustainability, global warming, over-fishing, overpopulation, the pensions crisis; all of which are characterized by a set of messy, circular, aggressive and peculiarly long-term problems and go on to suggest that it is not the circumstances that are too complex, but our way of reading them that is too simple. Too simple and often wrong.
The authors aim to blend four streams choice, economics, systems and evolution in a combination they believe is the key to making better decisions and, in turn, finding answers to the world’s most pernicious problems.
The authors aim to blend four streams choice, economics, systems and evolution in a combination they believe is the key to making better decisions and, in turn, finding answers to the world’s most pernicious problems.
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Reviews
In this thought-provoking and enlightening book, Mainelli and Harris highlight a point that economists too often forget: that economics is, at its heart, the study of human behaviour, and that both commerce and its wicked sister, finance, mean nothing unless they are connected to people and society.
We have all discovered, painfully, that there are some areas, important to our existence, where price signals have worked badly or not at all. Financial markets are one. Deep-sea fishing part of the tragedy of the commons - is another. This book is a challenging contribution to understanding these failures.
For someone who is not a professional economist, Michael Mainelli thinks more cleverly about economics than anyone else I’ve met or read. I have never had a discussion with Michael without feeling that I've learned something new. The Price of Fish will provoke, enrage and intrigue people. But above all it will enlighten.
I defy anyone not to enjoy this presentation of global issues explained in an innovative way with amusing anecdotes and analogies.
Mainelli and Harris are very bright fellows. It shows in this elegant and witty approach to resource economics which tackles all those dangerous issues which arise when Mother Earth and the market collide.
Michael and Ian have proved adept in presenting to commercial enterprises and interested laymen the complicated interactions in the real world of those theories and disciplines with human foibles, accelerating technological change, general noise and interference from misguided politicians with agendas and incompetent bureaucrats, causing unintended consequences and manifest disasters in the global financial and commercial affairs of society. Refreshingly they tell it as it is and we are all the better for it.
As one of the world’s largest fish buyers I lived on a daily basis with this ‘Wicked Problem’. Michael’s and Ian’s contribution is a welcome insight to complex commercial decision making.
Your mother used to tell you that fish is good for the brain. Reading this terrifying analysis will prove her right.
Crazy but worth your attention.
This book shows how unpicking something as innocent as the price of fish reveals an interconnected world of ‘wicked problems’, unravelling which will be vital to squaring the demands of a rising population with climate change and resource depletion.
In a planetary economy crying out for fresh thinking, smart analysis and, crucially, pragmatic optimism, anything Michael Mainelli and Ian Harris have to offer is not only worth a look but arguably a must-read. I recommend this book to anyone who thinks there must be cleverer ways in which civilisation can manage its future.